Construction of a highly specific fluorescence "turn-on" probe for H2S detection and imaging in drug-induced live cells, zebrafish and mice arthritis models.

Quantitatively and selectively detecting the biomarker of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in arthritis diseases is of great significance for the early diagnosis and treatment of arthritis. Modern medical studies show that H2S as a biomarker is involved in the development of inflammation. In this work, a new highly specific fluorescence "turn-on" probe JMD-H2S was tailored for H2S detection and imaging in drug-induced live cells, zebrafish and mice arthritis models, which utilized pyrazoline molecule as the fluorescence signal reporter group and 2,4-dinitrophenyl ether group (DNB) with strong intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) effect as the H2S recognition moiety and fluorescence quenching group. JMD-H2S showed a fast response time (<60 s), a large fluorescence response ratio (enhanced ∼20 folds) at I453/I0, excellent sensitivity toward H2S over other analytes, and an outstanding limit of detection (LOD) as low as 25.3 nM. In addition, JMD-H2S has been successfully applied for detecting and imaging H2S in drug-induced live cells, zebrafish, and mice arthritis models with satisfactory results, suggesting it can be used as a robust molecular tool for investigating the occurrence and development of H2S and arthritis.

Integration of gut microbiota and metabolomics for the hematopoiesis of Siwu paste on anemia rats.

Background: To investigate the regulation mechanism of hematopoiesis of Siwu paste (SWP) in anemia rats, which is a classic Chinese prescription used for nourishing blood or blood deficiency over 1000 years. Methods: Blood cell and biochemical analysis were used to evaluate the hematopoietic function of SWP in anemia rats. The intestinal microbial composition was analyzed with 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and the metabolites were profiled using UPLC-TripleTOF system nontargeting metabolomics. Results: SWP can improve the levels of red blood cells, hemoglobin, platelet, hematocrit value, white blood cells, lymphocyte, EPO, TPO, and GM-CSF in anemia rats, and significantly change the microbial community and its metabolites. The correlation analysis of intestinal microbiota-hematopoietic efficacy shows that 13 kinds of different intestinal flora were related to hematopoietic efficacy, in which Prevotella_1, Prevotella_9, Lactobacillus, and norank_f__Muribaculaceae were significantly positively correlated with hematopoiesis, nine kinds of intestinal flora are negatively correlated with hematopoietic effect. Compared with anemia rats, 218 potential metabolic biomarkers and 36 metabolites with significant differences were identified in the SWP treatment group, and the key metabolites were mainly amino acids and lipids. An in-depth analysis of metabolic pathways showed that SWP mainly affected 7 metabolic pathways, including aminobenzoic acid degradation and tryptophan metabolism. Conclusion: The study provides novel insights into the regulation of hematopoiesis of SWP in anemia rats that were correlated with gut microbiota and the metabolites, which through the restoration of the firmicutes/bacteroidetes ratio.

A turn-on fluorescent nanosensor for H2S detection and imaging in inflammatory cells and mice.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is an endogenously generated gaseous signaling molecule and is known to be involved in the occurrence and development of inflammation. To better understand its physiological and pathological process of inflammation, reliable tools for H2S detection in living inflammatory models are desired. Although a number of fluorescent sensors have been reported for H2S detection and imaging, water-soluble and biocompatibility nanosensors are more useful for imaging in vivo. Herein, we developed a novel biological imaging nanosensor, XNP1, for inflammation-targeted imaging of H2S. XNP1 was obtained by self-assembly of amphiphilic XNP1, which was constructed by the condensation reaction of the hydrophobic, H2S response and deep red-emitting fluorophore with hydrophilic biopolymer glycol chitosan (GC). Without H2S, XNP1 showed very low background fluorescence, while a significant enhancement in the fluorescence intensity of XNP1 was observed in the presence of H2S, resulting in a high sensitivity toward H2S in aqueous solution with a practical detection limit as low as 32.3 nM, which could be meet the detection of H2S in vivo. XNP1 also has a good linear response concentration range (0-1 µM) toward H2S with high selectivity over other competing species. These characteristics facilitate direct H2S detection of the complex living inflammatory cells and drug-induced inflammatory mice, demonstrating its practical application in biosystems.

Construction of a robust turn-on fluorescence NIR sensor for rapid detection and imaging of ONOO- in inflammatory models.

Peroxynitrite (OONO-) is closely related to the occurrence and development of health and inflammatory diseases. The physiological and pathological results of OONO- are related to the local concentration of ONOO-. Therefore, to develop of a simple, rapid and reliable OONO- detection tool is badly needed. In this work, we developed a small-molecule near-infrared (NIR) turn-on fluorescence sensor (NN1), harnessing a well-known response group phenylboronic acid response toward OONO-. It shows high detection sensitivity and yields a ratio (I658/I0) fluorescence enhancement (∼280-fold). In addition, NN1 can be effectively used to detect endogenous and exogenous ONOO- in living inflammatory cells. Notably, NN1 can be applied to OONO- imaging analysis in drug-induced inflammatory mice model with satisfactory results. Therefore, NN1 is a robust molecular biological tool, which has a good prospect in the study of ONOO- and the occurrence and development of inflammatory diseases.

Lensless multiple-image optical encryption based on improved phase retrieval algorithm.

A novel architecture of the optical multiple-image encryption based on the modified Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm (MGSA) by using cascading phase only functions (POFs) in the Fresnel transform (FrT) domain is presented. This proposed method can greatly increase the capacity of the system by avoiding the crosstalk, completely, between the encrypted target images. Each present stage encrypted target image is encoded as to a complex function by using the MGSA with constraining the encrypted target image of the previous stage. Not only the wavelength and position parameters in the FrT domain can be keys to increase system security, the created POFs are also served mutually as the encryption keys to decrypt target image from present stage into next stage in the cascaded scheme. Compared with a prior method [Appl. Opt.48, 2686-2692 (2009)], the main advantages of this proposed encryption system is that it does not need any transformative lenses and this makes it very efficient and easy to implement optically. Simulation results show that this proposed encryption system can successfully achieve the multiple-image encryption via fewer POFs, which is more advantageous in simpler implementation and efficiency than a prior method where each decryption stage requires two POFs to accomplish this task.

Thickness for optimizing of organic layer and multi-layer anode on luminance efficiency in white-light top-emission organic light-emitting diodes.

The multilayer contact structures in both the anode and organic layers for top-emission organic light emitting diodes (TEOLEDs) are studied in this paper. The anode consists of aluminum/gold (Al/Au). The Al is used for high reflectivity and Au for high work function by enhancing the hole injection from the anode into the organic hole injection layer. The organic layer thicknesses on the luminance characteristics were studied. The hole injection (HIL), hole transport (HTL) and electron transport layer (ETL) thicknesses were adjusted to balance the electron and hole recombination ratio. A highest brightness and best luminance efficiency of 8041 cd/m2 and 3 cd/A were obtained, respectively. After optimization of each organic layer thickness, the white top-emission organic light emitting diodes (white TEOLEDs) was also studied. The white TEOLEDs were achieved using two approaches with doped concentrations adjustment (CIE coordinates at x = 0.31, y = 0.38, density of 0.6%) and doped positions adjustment with CIE coordinates at x = 0.30, y = 0.34 at position = 15 nm away from carriers recombination interface.

Black film for improving the contrast ratio of organic light emitting diodes.

This paper presents a black film with double period metal-organic cathode structure for reducing the cathode reflection and enhancing the contrast ratio (CR) in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). The absorption and destructive interference effect caused by the copper-phthalocyanine (CuPc) and ultra thin aluminum (Al) periodic layers decrease the ambient light. The double-period black film structure (Al/CuPc/Al/CuPc/Al) has the lowest reflected luminance of 2.61 cd/m2 during ambient light of 33.5 cd/m2. The device CR without any black film is only 82.5. The device with single period black film (Al/CuPc/Al) obtains up to 267.1 and the highest CR of 958 can be achieved with a double period black film Al/CuPc/Al/CuPc/Al structure.